I still remember one of my first meetings in June, sitting with Safi Sabuni & Jonathan Jelves at KTH and where they were encouraging me re-start ESN SUS.

At that moment I had just our official email, the section registered at University and bunch of contacts that I could use in order to have some support. My main preoccupation was, how should I start the organisation without the money, where I am going to get money from… but they told me, don’t worry about the money. Focus on making things happen and then the money will come to the organisation.

After a couple of weeks I got an email from Scanbalt that they were willing to work with us. They were offering us some initial bonus to start and some nice deal for all the year for making promotion for their tours. Then was the moment that I though EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

Of course, I couldn’t make everything alone so I started looking around for some help. Who could help me out with the idea of ESN SUS? I have approached few of my friends and then we saw some external Dj who was active in the city. We had the meeting, everything was really nice, all people were so excited about the idea but we had to keep working, in order to make it happen.

We were 4 people, starting the idea in June, but the problem was that we were not known. We just got our logo, we started to spread awareness on social media and of course, starting planning for upcoming year.

Our strategy was firstly be known by providing services that people were looking for. In July we had already planned events for end of August and September. As we were just few people we have started organising a lot of parties, because this is what international students were looking for at the beginning: parties, hangouts and other interactions with other students.

So things were a bit in rush, a lot of events and just few people working on it. Was very exhausted, so it was time to get more people helping out. We did our recruitment during end of august. We got amazing people and we have increased the team, even doubling it.

At the beginning it was just party organisation, making two parties per week but when we got more people helping out, we could focus more on other events, this is our goal as ERASMUS STUDENT NETWORK. We are taking care about international students by providing them different activities with local and international students. That makes them understand different cultures, make friendships, expand network, enjoy their exchange program and much more…

We have started working more with other activities, we were not just known as party organisation. We still were struggling during first semester because we were not that much known and as we were not enough people, but everything has changed after half year. We got even more people involved, around 20 people and there is when we could improve all recruitment processes, complete our internal structure, communication management, finances and all development of our business model went much better.

With more people finally we were able to start working on other projects, by that increasing engagement of international students with social initiatives, cultural activities and of courses in general, improving the quality of our events. As we were already know by students, we have decided decrease the amount of the events and increase the quality to provide better service, so we could by known by quality.

Things were going in good direction, thanks to all the team efforts and all external supports. Right now, finally we got new President Elected for upcoming year Alessandro Tedesco and I am feeling that I am leaving my position, as a President more than cover with him.

He is full of ideas, he enjoys what he does and I believe that he will make next year memorable also.

It was really funny discussion with him about why I was the President at ESN SUS. He was the first one thinking that something was strange, I didn’t enjoy parties/events, I was there but was not the same and then I told him. I enjoy making things happen, when it is challenging, when we need to do things, but when everything is ready, I just want to make sure that things are going in good direction.

So it was challenging year, but all the team we made it possible ❤

My advice: make good recruitment by recruiting self-driven people that you can trust and think about good strategy.

If you do that, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE